Synopsis
She was never meant to be a bride — she was meant to be a bargain. Annabelle Thorne has spent her life as her father's greatest asset: sharp-minded, iron-willed, and worth more than the steel empire that forged her. Now she's being traded for the one thing money alone cannot buy — a title. Alaric Blackwood, the Ninth Duke of Velloway, is proud, cold, and devastatingly broke. His crumbling estate demands a fortune he doesn't have, and his honor refuses to let his tenants starve. He doesn't want a wife. He wants a transaction. But Annabelle is no meek sacrifice, and Alaric is no indifferent stranger. From their first meeting — all frost and fire, challenge and refusal — something dangerous sparks between them. She sees the man behind the title. He sees the woman behind the price tag. In a world where love is a luxury neither can afford, the contract is simple: marriage, an heir, survival. But the cost? The cost may be everything they've sworn never to surrender.
